History Detectives: Secrets of the Tape

A man in Opelika, Alabama, thinks he may have inherited the first commercially produced automobile tape player in the U.S.

Even more fascinating is the possibility that the technology to produce this early tape player was stolen from the Nazis in the closing days of World War II.

Then, while browsing through a Montana antique store, a resident of Modesto, California, discovered an unusual leather satchel. According to legend, a Norwegian immigrant by the name of John Thompson risked life and limb to hand-deliver the post across the high Sierra Mountains in the years before the Civil War. Could this bag be one that Thompson used on his arduous journeys?

Finally, a Missouri resident recently inherited a number of items that had been in her family for more than 130 years, including an unusual wooden box. The label affixed to the inside of the box contained the date 1894 and language that suggested the box once contained a birth control device. The Detectives examine a case that just may change the way we think about the history of family planning in America.